


Merry-Go-Round

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To come full circle, they play it waltz-time. Both are shameless cheats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry-Go-Round

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by benedictcumberkisses for the River Song/Doctor ficathon: "This wasn't any kiss, I'm still not over this" - May Day Parade's "No Heroes Allowed"
> 
> Big thank you to [Inkfire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkfire/pseuds/Inkfire) and Gus for their tireless beta.

Nothing was fair when it came to River Song and her impossible impossibleness. 

Naturally to any outsider eye, the Doctor guessed he did deserve every bit of bad treatment he was getting from River and the TARDIS. They had spent a lovely if somewhat daredevil day chasing Sontarans around the Tower of Pisa, while fighting back zombie tourists. The zombies were amenable enough after River had stolen a purple Vespa and scared the life out of them, charging and hurling abuse at them, hair and eyes electric. To be fair, they probably thought her to be the Devil himself. The Sontarans were not obliging at all. They did though offer them a very nice shot of River and him snuggled on the Vespa, with zombies dangling from the Tower of Pisa in the background, as a token of appreciation for not humiliating them on the battlefield.  River and the Doctor had inadvertently saved the world from a new hostile breed of zombie moustachioed Sontaran tourists. Again. The rest of the day was spent with Italian ice-creams -a lot-, wandering hands -that got them expelled from a museum- and lazy strolling along the Arno River. They expected a reward for their daily accomplishments and indulged in take-away pizzas -along with tiramisu and chianti- from the best pizzeria in town. Because, obviously, zombie tourists and Sontarans tickled their fancy for mozzarella and basil. 

A location less lopsided, of which River would not want to jump, was ordered. The TARDIS answered accordingly.

On top of the New Pier State building with a breath-taking view over New New York, their dream date for the night had gone down the pan. More precisely, had been sequentially ruined by the Doctor in what seemed in retrospect a complex choreography of flailing limbs: short circuited the refrigerator and its content - lost the pantry in the swimming pool - burnt the authentic Pisaean pizzas. The latter especially had brought down River’s wrath upon him and fuelled the TARDIS’s spite. 

His girls were now sulking in a corner of the observation deck, pigheadedly refusing to move an inch after his successful sabotage. Instead of savouring delicacies and kisses as originally planned, the Doctor was shoved outside the ship by claw-y and not very caressing hands, clamorous for food, to go down the hundreds of meters in a metallic box in search of a pleasing enough consolation pizza. 

He climbed down the service stairs to the nearest store accessible to the lift and diligently waited. A clear tingling rang and a plucky lift boy let him in, for a second curbing the frenetic prancing he was performing on the spot to ask him where he was headed to. 

The lift was empty in those higher storeys. The Doctor swirled in and leaned against the wall opposite the door with an unconvinced flounce. He eyed the cool, shiny interior, a neglected expression plastered on his face. _Funny things_ , he thought _, lifts; boxes going up and down, but that’s all, but boxes still; are like TARDISs, kind of, well not like-like, just ridiculously-inferior-yet-still-reminding-me-of-like._ He guiltily readjusted his bowtie; _better not say that to Sexy._

Around the ninetieth stair, the lift shaft came to a halt and in walked a remarkable figure -he did not look with attention, _because lifts_ , _his box would hate it, odd, odd boxes_ \- who seemed to be wrapped in a lot of colours and a distinct smell of light spring shower, of outside and rain and concrete. And the figure -really, he wasn’t paying any attention- promptly proceeded to snog him senseless, grabbing his bum and gripping his neck as if trying to gulp him whole. 

The lift boy gaped, the Doctor flailed, with indignation and soon, with delight, as he recognised a perfume and sweetness oh-so familiar in his assailant. River, in disguise, of course; little pince-nez atop her pink nose, rather reddened by the chase down the stairs to catch him; the flash of her vortex manipulator lost in a confusion of large, copious lead bracelets; a grey fedora tweaked on her tamed curls; curves stealthily finding their way to his hand under the heaps of shimmering layers she had donned. All that he noticed while still caught in the kiss, at the same time wondering if he could at some point drop the baffled act because the way he was pulling her closer and closer was not going unnoticed by the lift boy. How he thanked River for her choice of clothes; it was like going on a treasure hunt, the fabrics shed under his hands to disclose an inch of skin in the confidence of their closeness. She pulled away, smile contented and lips red-lead from the kiss. 

His left heart had just collided into his right heart and together they were dancing a little jig of flutters and somersaults. The impact had left his brain askew, little stunning abrasions forming in the vision centre of his brain, dotting River’s face with specks of light, like suns or supernovas. Or it was just River’s face aglow with affection. He caved in, trying to find her frame but she slipped out of his grasp and backed away with a cheep at the back of her throat, an unearthly vision against the impossibly green background of the corridors. Workers were stepping in, flowing past her as if unaware of the apparition that had just graced their floor. She flickered out of sight. The lift boy, still gaping, was thwacked by an incomer and the lift resumed its course down. 

How high was the Doctor.   _A vision certainly_. He had no idea what had happened.

And for five storeys, nothing did.

He was comforted in his idea the forces at play in a lift were simply deceiving his delicate senses when came the eighty sixth floor and a long roughened silhouette swaggered inside, appearing from behind a boorish looking man. River, in a form-fitting… he gulped - _was it a cat suit?_ In a step, he was bent backwards and passionately kissed, very much a damsel in distress as her hand under his neck maintained him, tight and strong. And so very small, he marvelled. So very skilled. So very… _River, what are you doing with my ear?_ He attempted a word but she fiercely deepened the kiss and set out the rules of the game. _Fine_ , he thought, smiling against her lips, _that could be fun_. He kneed her; she laughed, not releasing him. He bit; she wrinkled her nose. He tickled; still she had him in her paws. Without a warning she pulled back, green slits burning just before his eyes. Voracious. He refrained a roar in his throat. Backing away from him, hips in full swing, she stole out of the shaft. A feral smile shot before the doors slid shut.

_Oh. River. You bad, bad girl._

Apparently, his fellow travellers were shouting at him. The lift boy was choking on giggles.

And every ten stairs or so, amongst the odd humans setting foot in the lift, there was one, always differently clothed and sometimes wigged who would jump him -River. A million women and, once, on the twenty first floor, a man would assail him and love him for a station. It would always take him a few seconds to find her in the middle of the crowd; she picked the most visited floors and the most ludicrous disguises making him work for his kisses. She would embrace him, or snog him, or practically lick him and rush out cackling, curls and coats whipping the air to life as if a lightning had just struck. The assembly within the shaft, dumbfounded, seized with utter panic and, maybe, because she was River after all, envy, would somehow learn after the third barging to leave space for the wild blonde -sometimes brunette- and baffling costumes, soaring like a meteor.

What a parade of colours and acts and kisses it was. With each touch, light or clamorous, he would find new Rivers within the River, new sides to her kisses and holds, her steps and twirls as she glanced back at him through the closing doors a wonder. Between the stops, when she would not be with him, he would repress a blush and a laugh, staggering between dread and glee as he tried to speculate on the kind of disguise -and fondles- she would manage to come up with this time. He was anticipating the moment the doors would open and reveal on the level floor River, a cocky grin on the face, perhaps in that dazzling green dress of hers, and they would dash off out of the building through the streets, looking for that _darn pizza_.

Once, on the fiftieth floor, River slid in airily, all clad in an unsuspicious suit, stern and pale, and she stood beside him, without a word. It came just after the mad red snog of the sixty third floor and he waited, looking askance, for her to move or leap to devour him. She was not budging; lids low, face free of make-up and curls, timid amongst her own thoughts and presence. 

The onlookers were casting curious glances in their direction, the older travelling companions with a bitten lip, bemused gleam in the eye, attraction pending. The Doctor was ready to give in, wondering whether or not he should take the first step, when, gently, almost apologetically, she tilted her whole frame and deposited a feather light kiss on his right cheek. So tender, so un-River-like he turned crimson. She was still leaning towards him, studying his profile with dedication. Still pale, still pleated in herself, lost to the world but his face. He felt such love emanating from this quiet, studious presence against him, yet not touching. The whole shaft was a pinnacle which had been gathering momentum precisely to reach that moment in particular when she would hover and just be, near, her intelligence and understanding brushing his mind by waves, licking the shores, leaving impressions of tenderness like foam on the sand. Stronger, more scarring than any kiss she could have stolen to his earlobe.

And then the cabin stopped, the doors opened; he parted his lips with a small pop, ready, this time, to catch her before she flew off. Because _no, River, you don’t leave me after THAT._ She set herself in motion and moved forward, for a brief moment catching his forefinger and clinging, tiny hook in his large palms. So brief was her hold she never seemed to have stopped her progression and the moment after, she was gone. He stood, dumb and cold, as around the hushes were fluttering again. His hand coiled into a small cage, foolish attempt to preserve her passing memory on his flesh, the warm precious spot encased within a structure of twitching kiss-curls. Holding.

_You devil of a woman._

A be-flowered River delightedly pecked him on the nose and the first floor was finally passed. No River was there to receive him but a burn from his inner left pocket. The psychic paper was in the process of being furiously marked by River’s impatience to taste the “damn pizza, Sweetie. I’ll eat your hats if you do not hurry”. He huffed and nonchalantly headed for the doors, while programming his sonic to guide him towards the nearest pizzeria – River and him had not gotten to the upgrade enabling it to track the best pizzerias, but they were working on it.

Except, half drunk when he reached the ground floor, and none saner when he stepped out in the drizzle, he started zigzagging aimless under the bemused look of the passers-by. His face was smeared with lipstick, not hallucinogenic -he knew the difference by then- but when did River ever need chemicals to have him intoxicated?

He got lost.

All was River and nothing made sense, and the curve of every street light was designed to praise that of her cheek. 

While wandering through the streets, he ran into a phone box. _Again a box, Sexy, boxes that are not blue are so overrated. Plain, translucent, all cold-smoke-hanging-upon-every-inch phone box._ The glimmer of that box though, alone, standing in the mist and midwinter midday laziness reminded him of River; eddies of dust and droplets billowing above like corkscrews of light hung upon her cheek. 

River in a box, up there, down here, River everywhere.

He bounced toward the boring, boring box and swung open the door, giggling. Whipping out his sonic, he picked up the receiver and offered himself a free call. With excitement bubbling over his features, he waited for her to answer. And when she did, half annoyed, half suspicious, with a low “River Song speaking”, he burst and chirped “Hello, hello” in the receiver and hung up, not waiting for her quizzical “Doctor! What are you… ” 

He danced out, jumped from one foot to another, leapt on the twinkly pavement, then waltzed up the street in search of another phone box. _Oh_ , the flashing reflection in a vitrine sent him back the picture of a tousled mad man, the most drenched grin on the face, the most rapturous disorder in the hair. 

He began running. Fast and wild. And his thoughts faster and wilder even. Images of River danced around the streets emptied by the sudden downpour. He would stop at every phone box he found and ring River, with a “Hello, hello”. Sometimes tender, sometimes coy, always inventive. He tried it high, he tried it low, in Amy’s rumbling brawl, in Liz II’s chirping tone, but always _hello_ , and _hello_. 

Their words.

And he would find another phone box and another. With every box, eating up miles of cold, rainy streets, repeating this word which was so many synecdoches in one. Only Hello, but not only.

Hello-I-miss-you, Hello-I-love-your-hair, Hello-I’m-sorry-I-busted-our-evening, Hello-River-Song-Melody-Pond-the-mad-woman-who-married-me, and Hello-Hello. And she would grow impatient, and tired and embarrassed and finally cry with laughter after he tried to say it in Jack Harkness’ voice, but was hassled by an amorous dog. Then came a time when he just would chant to the receiver, in an attempt to summon their first “Hello”; Demon’s Run. Eyes closed and with fear, a little, of exhausting that moment, her face and his face and what happened exactly to his insides as he saw her, for the first time. But he could not drain it. 

And on the other end, he could hear River smiling and laughing, her sharp mind bubbling aloud. A shy “Stop it” would escape her from time to time but the mere fact she chose the very words was telling. She sounded drunk with his words. She pleaded him to stop or change the record but the repeated passing of her lips had scrubbed him clean and left nothing but the two words, “hello” and “hello”.

The words when he came to know her. 

He was left singing _Hello, hello, hello_ in the streets, hailing the grey skies, hallooing River through the drizzle. With a sweeping movement of the arm, he let the last phone hanging down and jumped out in the nearest puddle, beating a tattoo furious on the pavement. He cried at the top of his lungs, so River could hear him –and the world with her.

“Ahoy there! River Song, come play with me in the mud, you glorious archaeologist! Melody Pond, you scrumptious CTE, you and me, boxes and boxes, you watch us hijack every single flight; the lift network and the phone network, the tiny aperitif cube network and every box network there is.”

Madly, to the point where she begged him to drop the pizza and just buy or steal the nearest take-away restaurant -Lebanese apparently- and rush home to her. 

She said “home”. “To me”. 

He flew. 

He did not bother to call a cab or wait for a lift; if Time Lord physiology could be useful, it was precisely in those times when he needed to climb 1,860 steps, under ten minutes, with a mind going nowhere near the placement of his feet on the steps or the steadying of his ragged breath roaring inside his lungs. He would have been Harold Lloyd and climb the building bare hands. He would have been Hannibal Lecter and scar the soul of the innocuous lift boy with his bored manic smile. He was just a mad man with a box of Lebanese take-away.

When he pirouetted out on the roof, his TARDIS was a blue frame for an inquiring River, ready to receive him in her arms, waiting patiently. He sprang, all images of the previous Rivers shattering to recompose in that one frame of perfect, small, snug River, with drops permeating her hair, webs of light flowering on her browning overcoat. She barely had time to utter “What on earth happened to you?”, he crashed in her arms before they collapsed against the TARDIS doors, and he held tight. And held. And held. Filling the blanks his mind had left in his capturing River Song. The scent, the word, the touch, the madness, the warmth, the cuddliness, the strength, the Riverimpossibleness.

He got lost, again. In River.

Drowned in her.

She pillowed her head on his shoulder and inhaled sharply, baffled by his sudden abandon. Not twenty minutes ago, he had left her with a grimace, resilience and brood, as if scolded, refusing to recognise he had committed silliness after silliness. And here he was all foolish limbs and icicles hands, holding to her, deprived. Of what, she wondered. 

He was scooped on her hearts like a child, bobbing faintly against her, on the edge of consciousness and she could tell from the way his mind was wandering where he was. Exactly there -which was rare enough to note-, on her hearts, or rather lost between them, listening to their double beat. _Stupid big boy_. She smiled, securing the hug in way of an apology and warranting in return her cool, undemanding embrace. Dedicated and patient in his study of her skin, his hands followed her collarbone, scraped the seam of her blouse before finding a loose curl and tugging it. He gingerly wrapped it around his finger and kissed it. _Ring finger._ She stilled. Cheeks suddenly heated.

The clouds above were still shifting, letting bursts of rain sweep them by. Would they choose to remain and shudder, the warmth sipping from her could actually sustain them both.

Her hand dislodged itself from the crook of his arm and worriedly picked up his face, tilting it to catch the light. His wet hair were drawing intricate pattern on his crown, lips dry and pale. A creamy mask pierced by wide, calm eyes stared back at her from the realm of dreams, and the pupils and the eyelids were swollen. What stupendous images that crazy mind of his could well see, she did not know. His mind was caught though, somewhere, and completely.

His fingers reached up to her lips and she started as he traced their outline, intent, enraptured.

_Oh._

Her head fell back against his torso, fleeing his hands, suddenly flushed with self-consciousness. Overjoyed, she felt like capsizing only to find him steady under her, and tender, and there.

“Can you please tell me what happened?”, she whispered against the fabric of his wet collar, sweat and rain mingled within.

“What prompted those…” she let out a fond chuckle, “silly phone calls?”

“You started it,” came the muffled answer from somewhere in her hair.

She tentatively lifted an eyebrow and he continued unperturbed.

“In the lift, you started it.”

Her mind was blank, not even daring to venture in speculation territory.

“It wasn’t me.”

“It was! Same you, same everything, except different clothes. Popped in and out of the shaft and kissed me. And kept going, in and out, all over me until the level floor.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“But it was you, River Song!” He disentangled her from his neck and faced her, a wicked gleam in the eye. She snorted. _Wicked, really? The evening may not be ruined after all._   “You smelled just like… well now, outside and rain and concrete.” 

Her eyes blazed for a split second. _Oh_ , timey-wimey hearts of hers. 

‘Did I? Am I really the cause for this…” She gestured at his cloudiness and marshmallow brightness.

He shook his head in agreement, childish and boisterous. It was inviting, it was tempting and she aimed for his lips; he cupped her mouth. 

“Not handling this right now” he hushed her, with a smug look on the face. He lifted from the floor the abandoned take-away box and pulled away from her, balancing the plastic bag on the tip of his fingers, weight against the door to open it. His other hand slid down from her shoulder to her hand, comfortably fitting there and tugging her inside. She indulged him, curious, as they passed the threshold, again trying to steal a kiss or insert a hand under his shirt. He would battle her hand away, little commander in chief with a plan to carry out.

His smug grin was faultlessly infuriating. And irresistible.

“I have a romantic meal to unwra… prepare. You have a wardrobe waiting for you. And don’t come back ‘til you’re of a marshmallow colour of giddiness. You’ll know what to do.”

She stopped dead on her tracks, suddenly worried.

 

 


End file.
